SOURCE: Delingpole, James. “Alain and Me.” Spectator 284, no. 8957 (8 April 2000): 51.

In the following review, Delingpole provides a laudatory assessment of de Botton's television series, Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness.

If Alain de Botton weren't a friend of mine, I think I would probably hate him. In fact, I know I would hate him because even when he wasn't as disgustingly famous and successful as he is now, I found myself loathing his guts on principle. I hated the fact that he was always on Tatler's 100 most eligible bachelors list; that he'd had two awesomely well-received, nauseatingly precocious novels published by the time he was 25; that he was younger, more intelligent, better looking and a zillion times richer than me …

Then, one day, I got to meet him and discovered that he was even worse than I'd feared: not only was he brilliant, handsome, youthful and rich, but the...